It provided no reason at all, but it seemed to do. Moresby gave him an odd look, but it seemed more prompted by surprise that anybody could act humanely than suspicion at his motives. He proffered the bottle by way of welcome. Bourbon was the last thing Argyll wanted at that time of day, but he felt it was uncivil to refuse. He took a long suck and, while he was getting his voice back, and trying to stop his eyes watering, Moresby rambled on about his old man.
They were not close, Argyll divined. It appeared that old Moresby had cut the aspiring author out of his will a year or so ago – depriving someone of a couple of billion dollars does sometimes make relations a little frosty.
'Why did he do that?'
'Let's just say he had a really weird sense of humour. He wanted me to follow him and make more money. I reckoned he'd made enough already. So he said that if money was so unimportant to me, he'd leave all of his to someone who appreciated it more.'
'Like his wife?'
'She adores the stuff.'
'And the museum?'
'A virtual money sink.'
'And this was meant to make you mend your ways?'
'I guess. But, here I am, penniless. Likely to stay that way, as well. Too late to change his mind now.'
'But he didn't really cut you out, did he?'
'Not specifically, no. Just didn't leave me anything. Same thing. 'To my dear son I leave my very best wishes.' Or some such. No one can accuse him of inconsistency.'
'I suppose that's lucky, in a way,' Argyll commented.
'Why's that?'
'Well, the police are looking for whoever killed him. You had a perfect motive for keeping him alive.'
'Yup. And an alibi, too, as Langton phoned me after the body was found and I was here.'
Argyll did some quick calculations. That fitted. No way he could have got back that fast. What a suspicious person you are, he thought.
'And where were you?' Moresby asked.
'Me?'
'Yes. You. After all, if you're going to check up on me, it's only fair I should check up on you.'
'Fair enough. I was in a restaurant until an hour after the murder. Lots of witnesses. No trouble there.'
'Hmm. OK, I'll believe you. That's us out. That leaves that Spaniard, doesn't it?'
Argyll wrinkled his nose to indicate disapproval of police thought patterns. 'So the police seem to think, but I don't rate him as a murderer. He wanted to sell your father too much sculpture. Killing the goose is one thing, but a sensible person would wait until it laid an egg or two. Besides, Hector's always appallingly polite to clients. Shooting them is not in his book of etiquette. On the other hand, I must admit that until he turns up he's likely to be the front runner.'
'You reckon?'
'Yes. But I'm sure he'll reappear. He hardly seemed homicidal when I talked to him just before the murder. Did he?'
Moresby confessed he didn't really know how homicidal tendencies manifested themselves in party conversation.
'I rather suspected your stepmother, myself,' Argyll confessed, not sure whether this was a good thing to say. Jack didn't seem to mind. 'But Morelli tells me she'd already left and has an alibi from her chauffeur. Are you sure she was having an affair?'
'Oh, sure. Lots of absences, extended shopping expeditions, weekends away with girlfriends. Easy enough to work out.'
'And your father knew?'
'He did after I'd rung his office to tell him, yes.' Jack looked at him curiously. 'I suppose you reckon that's pretty disgusting, eh? And you're right. But that bitch poisoned his mind to get me cut out, and all I was doing was fighting back. Fair's fair.
'I guess it's sad I didn't see the old man before he died,' he went on meditatively. 'I shouldn't have left so soon. Hadn't seen him for, oh, must have been six months or so. Call me an old sentimentalist, but I would have given a lot just to have called him a mean old bastard one more time. By way of farewell. You know.'
Argyll nodded understandingly. 'Well, I'm glad you're taking it OK. Just came to see.'
'Appreciate it. Come up for a proper drink sometime.'
Argyll considered it. 'Thanks. Maybe I will. But I think I'll go back to Rome in a few days. If I stay here much longer I'll probably get run over.'
'Safest drivers in the world, we Californians.'
'Tell that to the driver of the purple truck that nearly took my kneecaps off.'
Moresby looked sympathetic.
'Of course, it might have been my fault,' Argyll said, determined to be fair. 'Partly, at least.'
'Don't say that,' Moresby advised. 'Never admit fault. Then you can sue the driver if you find him.'
'I don't want to sue him.'
'But if he finds you, he might sue you.'
'What on earth for?'
'Emotional distress caused by the closeness of damage to his fender. Sort of things courts take seriously out here.'
Only just convinced that Moresby was joking, Argyll took his leave, first asking for directions back to his hotel. His sense of direction was such that he could well have landed in the Rockies without guidance at every turn. Right, right and left at the bar, Moresby said. Then follow your nose. Yes, it does serve food. Argyll didn't want any, really, but thought it would be a good place to stop, so he could get more directions and soak up the whisky. Just in case.
He did. Ate a vegetarian hamburger of mind-boggling awfulness, drank a cup of coffee so weak you could see through it, and proceeded to round off a perfect day in a hospital bed with a broken leg.
It was perfectly simple. He drove all the way back to the hotel without making a single wrong turn, had a shower and then headed up the freeway to pay his respects to Mrs. Moresby. No mishaps or problems whatsoever. Except that, technically speaking, he didn't need to take a freeway at all, but got wedged in an entry lane and had no choice. Even, miracle of miracles got the right exit. Well, more or less. Down the ramp to the lights and right turn at the end, put on the brakes to slow down in the officially approved manner, and nothing happened.
Or rather, everything did. His vast and unwieldy Cadillac sailed majestically through the red lights, narrowly missing an assortment of cars, buses and trucks coming across at him. Mounted the sidewalk, still travelling at a decorous twenty-five miles an hour and scarcely jolted by the bump due to the formidable suspension, then proceeded inexorably through a twenty-foot-square plate glass window of, as Morelli mentioned, a designer clothes store, causing considerable damage to their stock.
Fortunately it was a very expensive shop, catering only to the seriously wealthy and, at the time of his entry, had no customers whatever. Indeed, there had been no customers at all so far that day. Business was so bad that the one saleswoman felt it perfectly safe to go out the back for a few moments for a quick smoke. Regulations forbade her to smoke inside the building and neither the owner nor the few customers approved.
It was just as well that she did, as when she returned the shop was not in the tidy condition in which she had left it. Argyll's left leg was jammed hard down on the brake pedal, even though the mechanism refused absolutely to respond. And, in a habit picked up from too much time in Rome, he indicated his pique at developments to curious spectators by throwing both hands above his head in the archetypal Italian gesture that indicates a cosmic despair at the bizarre absurdity and unfairness of life.
And he was in this posture when the front end of the car, fortunately several yards ahead of him, hit a brick wall in the centre of the building. Argyll was pushed forward, but his left leg, wedged against the brake pedal, tried to keep his body in place and gave way under the strain. A sizeable portion of the rest of him crashed against the steering wheel, unrestrained as it was by his hands which had still not completed their gesture, and broken glass coming in the other direction completed the damage.
Damn it, he thought as he lost consciousness. I'll never be able to criticise Flavia's driving again.
